I field about 3-4 questions per week about the current fitness electronics trend of workout data measurement rot runners.
Polar Foot Pod
Garmin GPS
Now, the disclaimer. I sell Polar products through my office and I like them alot. That said, I also own a Garmin. As I say, I'm a slave for gadgets.
The third device that has hit the market with considerable steam, due to the price, convenience, and capitalization on the Ipod nation, is the Nike Plus system. Basically, this is a similar technology to the Polar system but plugs directly into the Ipod Nano. It requires a small chip that fits inside special Nike shoes, or you can buy a shoelace holder (some claims of inaccuracy have been reported).
I had to have this too.
Now for the nerdy part. I decided to test the technologies side by side by side to see how accurate they are as compared to themselves. Meaning, I don't have an absolute perfect, objective, distance measurement standard to use, I just want to see how they all read a common distance.
I took all three devices for a variable elevation suffer-fest (hills), in my neighborhood. Out the door wearing all three devices and feeling like I was wearing taped glasses and a pocket protector too, I broke into stride.
Garmin 305 - the Garmin takes a minute to link up to the satellites but once it does, it gives outstanding information about the run. My knock on it is though, the pace is quite variable in that it eems to wobble up and down a bit. A bit frustrating while trying to keep a consistent pace. One feature that I love about this device is the auto-pause. It automatically stops the timer and recording when you stop moving. This is an awesome feature for those of us who live in suburbia with lights and crosswalks.
The on-screen info is great and everything is right there for you. The fact that you ca
n customize which screen shows which information is pure brilliance. The knock on this device is the heart rate strap which is quite uncomfortable comparative to the Polar wearlink strap. Of course the knock on the Garmin is the dependence on satellite position and blockages to that signal thus the pacing information changed alot during the run even though I hadn't. The overall average on the pace was accurate, but instantaneous information is extremely variable.The upload is the true gem of the Garmin system with the motionbased software/web client. It takes your gps data and overlays it onto a google map and shows the elevation, speed, distance, etc. Best of all, if I want to do a 10km run while travelling somewhere...other users will have a 10km run in that city uploaded to the site. I download to my garmin and follow the icons without worry about getting lost. I find myself excited to get the info off the watch when I return from a run.
Garmin showed distance as: 11.56kms
Polar 625X- The Polar products are scary accurate in my experience, as long as they are calibrated properly, however, what i've found was that the surface you're running on and the elevation changes can have big effects on its accuracy. The heart rate strap (wearlink) is dreamy, the readouts are easy to cycle through, and the information is excellent as well. The Polar is not affected by weather or buildings (unlike the Garmin), and the data when extracted t to the computer is very consistent, meaning paces are not wildly changing throughout the run. The problem, I believe, with accelerometer technology is that it's not very good with hills. The distance of your stride reduces but the turnover can increase. Definitely advantage to teh Garmin. However, on flat surfaces, the Polar wins.
The upload software is clunky and not very motivating to bother. I usually end up deleting my info from the watch before uploading. There's just not that much that's fun about it. Lots of information, but not alot of jazz.
Distance: 11.9kms
Nike + Ipod system
This a must have for the cool gadget factor. Admittedly I haven't calibrated this system yet but the distances are pretty far out of the range. Even on a straight out and back of 6kms the other day it was 200 meters out. But it's just so darn cool. It talks to you, you can hit the centre button your ipod to bring on your "power-song", it instantly sends your info to itunes and the
nike website. It's a very, very well though out system. In terms of accuracy? Again, it's not very reliable but for the everyday runner for fitness, it's more than accurate. Even better, it's an excellent motivator, and that's half the battle.Distance: 12.6kms
In conclusion, the Polar and Garmin have their strengths and weaknesses. I like them both. For a flat straight tempo run, the Polar is the device to have. The data is extremely accurate. For the hardcore training info consumer, it's the instrument for you. If you're out trailrunning and want a cool printout, the Garmin is the ticket. There's really not a clear winner between the two. The Nike plus system is ideally suited to the beginner to intermediate runner that needs the music motivator and the approximate distance they ran. To have your tunes on the run, it's great to have even in addition to the other devices.
